Around the year 1800, Daniel Boone or his sons Daniel Morgan and Nathan discovered a salt lick in what is now western Howard County. The lick became known as Boone's Lick, and the trail he blazed from St. Charles to Franklin, believed to follow parts of old Indian trapper trails, became known as the Boonslick Trail. That route opened the way for Franklin and the Boonslick area to become the next major populated region west of the Mississippi River. Early visitors included Lewis and Clark, surveyor Ira P. Nash, and Boone's sons Nathan and Daniel Morgan, who processed salt at the lick. By 1810, the first permanent settlers included Benjamin Cooper and his brothers Sarshall and Braxton and their families, along with Hannah Cole and Stephen Cole and their families, and settlers continued arriving until after the War of 1812, when migration surged. In 1816, Howard County and Franklin were established, and in 1821, Missouri became a state. By that time, there were 21,3100 people living in the Boonslick area and 2,000 in Franklin, most from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and the Carolinas, including farmers and many kinds of tradesmen and professionals. The Panic of 1819 left the area short of cash, but William Becknell, a Virginia settler who had worked for the Boone brothers hauling salt to St. Louis, soon opened a new source of wealth. In 1821, he organized a trading expedition from Franklin, left on September 1, and learned on the journey that Mexico had won independence from Spain and welcomed trade. His party went on to Santa Fe, traded their goods, and returned to Franklin in January 1822 with large profits in silver. Becknell made two more successful trips, beginning more than fifty years of trade between the United States and Mexico on the Santa Fe Trail. As traffic increased, pack animals gave way to heavy oxen-drawn freight wagons, profits soared, and traders faced dangers including Indian attacks, storms, flooded rivers, deserts, and shortages of water and pasture. Trade on the trail helped Boonslick towns grow and prosper, but as the Missouri River began washing Franklin away in 1826, the trailhead shifted west and population followed. The Santa Fe Trail also gave rise to the Oregon and California trails, helping open settlement to the Pacific, while the Boonslick Trail became the Boonslick Road, later closely followed by Highway 40 and then Interstate 70.